


nightshade

by edeabeth



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Titan's Curse, percy jackson - Fandom
Genre: Betrayal, Broken, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Hurt, Love, Night, Nightshade, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edeabeth/pseuds/edeabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sometimes she wonders as she gazes at her palms glazed with burn scars, if she has a death wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nightshade

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading the Heroes of Olympus, after not touching the original series for quite a while. My favourite character however, had been Zoe. I had wanted to do a write up on her for a while. So, yeah.

_Nightshade_

_“Stars. I can see the stars again, my lady.”_

_*_

1.

The gardens were beautiful. They were her childhood, mapped out from root to leaf. Roses grew amongst the thorns and the apples were golden. The skies hung low and grey, and somewhere she could always hear the low curses of her father settling over the gardens. They always made her look to the sky and count the stars, imaging herself somewhere far away from the rotting leaves and dead soil.

2.

Her sisters were wrapped up within the legacy of their father. The dragon prowls the garden, and she feels unease creeping through her veins. Each head slowly regards her, each eye blinking lazily at her. She tosses fruit at its feet, murmuring ‘sweet Landon, sweet.’ Venom drips from the teeth and danger is glazed over two hundred eyes. (‘please don’t kill me.’)

3.

Her father is a monster bound by the skies. He leers at her, grinding his teeth and swearing old curses at her. He demands for her to claim his place, to strain beneath the heavens. She always runs away from his angry form and hides within the trees and the bushes, trying to quell the storm within her heart. At night, he is but a shadow beneath the stars. She tries to find herself in the night sky, searching for her shadow outlined and mapped out by the stars.

4.

A star falls from the heavens one night and crashes into the garden. She burns her fingers trying to touch the rock, but it doesn’t matter. Her palms blister, but she clings to the burning rock all the same. Three years later, she still has that stupid rock from the sky and her palms have burn scars.

5.

His name is Hercules. His smile is a glaze of sunsets, and his eyes are like vortexes. Constellations sweep across his shadows, making a horizon of night skies and old stories. It takes only minutes for her to whisper the secrets into his ear, one by one. It’s by nightfall he has the golden apples, and she’s exiled by dawn. Devotion crumples at her lips. She faces the world alone, trying to find the stars and Hercules and everything she doesn’t understand.

6.

Artemis finds her. She slinks out of the night and shadows, and Zoe knows nothing but sisters and fathers, golden apples and heroes. “I understand you,” the goddess informs her, her smile thin but strong.

7.

It is easy to run through the night, chasing down prey and attacking. She becomes rough, all fast movements and strong glares. She resents men and apples, and somewhere down the line she stops looking up at the sky and down at the Earth because she has fallen one to many times. The arrow always finds the target, and she always brings down her prey. Sometimes she wonders as she gazes at her palms glazed with burn scars, if she has a death wish.

8.

It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter, because Artemis shouldn’t be missing and she shouldn’t be left to control her group. She shouldn’t be a hunter without the huntress, and the Earth seems so damn empty.

9.

The venom tastes like shades of night, and her father knocks her aside and his touch is like different shades of night. This is what sunset feels like. Death. It tastes like apples.

10.

_‘Stars. I can see the stars again, my lady.’_


End file.
